


someday, you will die (content and happy)

by kermit_the_frog



Series: i was the king of pain in unspeakable cruelty [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Dark God Ryan Haywood, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13117374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kermit_the_frog/pseuds/kermit_the_frog
Summary: It’s been a year and a half since he’s seen Ryan. Not his body. His body he’s seen everyday for two months, ever since he’d saved Michael. He only knows how long it’s been because he’s carved a gouge on his leg for every time Ryan -the Dark God, not Ryan because he’s the only one that was convinced it wasn’t Ryan. The only one who saw Ryan that night, shivering and dying on the stone floor. Jeremy thought he had died. That his corpse was just inhabited by this dark god. That Ryan died that night after he’d heard that shuddering breath change to a laugh. Before the shadows sprang to life around the castle.





	someday, you will die (content and happy)

**Author's Note:**

> A short thing I wrote that was based on a random song on my playlist, this one was inspired by Hate Stick Hard Party Part 2 by AJJ. Needless to say, it's pretty edgy.

The sky grows red. Not like the sunset but like the sky itself is bleeding. Like a deep dark lake of blood. But at first nobody notices. Achievement city lies quiet and docile and unaware as the -starting from the moon-  the blue becomes purple and then spreads out into that deep dark red. That crimson blood that seeps into the clouds and through stains even the stars themselves.

Somewhere a man is screaming though. Somewhere in the castle a man is screaming, trying to claw the blood from his skin as he sees his veins crisscross with black blood that burns him from the inside out. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He didn’t mean for this to happen.

Ryan doesn’t want to die.

It’s the rain that wakes the city. The castle -what with it’s royal advisors and knights, and attendants, and king- does not wake from the flooding, but as somewhere in the castle a man cries; fingers pulling out hair and clawing at eyes, the city begins to flood.

Citizens run for the hills, just now seeing the red sky and screaming. Screaming and running. There’s panic in the streets. Panic that the shadows exploit. In this flash flood, no one brings a torch as it would only be snuffed out by the rain. But the shadows pull at hair just as the man pulls at his hair. The shadows claw out eyes just as the man tries to do. The people don’t notice it’s the shadows for a while. There’s so many people running in the streets it’s easy to assume that someone just hit you, but as fewer and fewer people are running. As more people scream on the floor clutching at empty eye sockets people notice that not all the shadows belong to themselves.

It’s a massacre in Achievement City. A population of almost two million decimated in a single night as citizens run in every direction.

The castle doesn’t wake for the flooding, but once the tremors begin the castle buzzes like a shaken hornets nest. Where is it coming from? What’s happening?

Jeremy finds Ryan, wanting to be sure he got out. They’re evacuating and no one can tell him where Ryan is. Jeremy thinks he must have fallen asleep over his potions. He’s been working on some project for weeks, withdrawing from the rest of them and becoming irritable when disturbed. Jeremy’s not going to let something Ryan put so much work into be the reason he’s trapped here during this earthquake.

He hears the screaming from the corridor, and breaks into a sprint. What if the quake knocked something over? What if he’s stuck in their?

Jeremy wrenches the door open, ready to help Ryan out of whatever he’s trapped under but with the door open he only sees Ryan -in the same clothes he’s been wearing for three days straight- writhing and screaming on the floor. Jeremy runs to him, grabbing his arm and yanking hard. “Ryan we gotta go!”

Ryan doesn’t acknowledge him. Too busy yelling in pain as he pulls at a golden band around his head. And then Jeremy sees them; discoloured veins throughout Ryan arms. Jeremy’s been a soldier long enough to know what blood poisoning looks like and this looks pretty similar. And by the look of Ryan’s face, the infection had spread throughout his body. How had this happened so quickly?

Jeremy hoists Ryan over his shoulder, groaning under the weight of a grown man, especially one that insisted on being so difficult about saying still. He also grabs whatever different coloured potions were lying around and moved as quick as he could through the halls, ignoring his protesting legs and shoulders. Ryan was in no state to leave on his own it seemed. Ryan screamed and kicked and flailed through the corridors and jeremy pulled him along and Jeremy tells himself with every step how close they are to the outside. To where everyone else is. To help and to where Jack can fix Ryan. Where Ryan will be alright.

But Jeremy’s legs are weak and help is still so far. Ryan flails out an arm, obviously delirious. He’s been burning Jeremy through his clothes with a fever that must be killing him. Jeremy has to silence the thoughts about him already being dead because maybe he’d grabbed an experimental new healing potion or Jack could help him somehow.

Or at least, some small part tells him, at least if Jeremy can bring him out of here and away from the chaos there will be a peaceful place to say goodbye. To ask what happened and why.

Because Jeremy couldn’t put two and two together.

He’s still in denial of Ryan’s condition he doesn’t even consider that it might not be blood poisoning. He thinks that Ryan’s stillness means he’s sleeping. Fallen into unrested sleep but it only means his problems have gotten far, far worse.

* * *

It’s been a year and a half since he’s seen Ryan. Not his body. His body he’s seen everyday for two months, ever since he’d saved Michael. He only knows how long it’s been because he’s carved a gouge on his leg for every time Ryan -the Dark God, not Ryan because he’s the only one that was convinced it wasn’t Ryan. The only one who saw Ryan that night, shivering and dying on the stone floor. Jeremy thought he had died. That his corpse was just inhabited by this dark god. That Ryan died that night after he’d heard that shuddering breath change to a laugh. Before the shadows sprang to life around the castle.

It was easier to think someone else came to visit him daily, torturing and toying with him until he got bored. But Lately? The Dark God’s been staying longer. There’s less torture and more conversation. He’s still distant and dark but it’s like he’s lonely, in need of company. And sometimes he doesn’t cackle and it’s like Ryan’s back with his breathless little laughs and crooked smiles. But it’s still cold. And it’s always followed by pain beyond pain. Double what he’d had before. Like he’s being punished for bringing out that side of Ryan again

The torch lights above him and he gouges another gash in his leg. Sixty-seven tally marks litter his thigh. Sixty seven days and he still doesn’t regret his choice one bit.

“I don’t understand you.” Ryan says, sitting across from him on a throne Jeremy can’t see as it blends with all the perfect black shadows surrounding him.

“What’s there to understand?” He replies. He lives for those moments where Ryan is there. He doesn’t know if he’s hopeful that Ryan will come back out of this. That maybe he’ll snap out of it and be himself again or if he thinks he can just give Ryan that final goodbye before he dies. He could die content if he could tell Ryan goodbye. Tie up loose ends.

“You sit here all day waiting for me to hurt you. Why? Do you enjoy the time we spend together?” Ryan asks.

“Kinda,” Jeremy tells him. He’s honest with Ryan, no point in being stubborn or defiant. He’s here. He’s already lost. “I like talking. Not so much the torture but…” Well Ryan gets the idea.

“You miss talking with your old friend,” Ryan concludes, with a little laugh, “You think you see him in me sometimes.”

Spot on.

Ryan stands, kneeling down to be level with Jeremy, “Well, rest assured-”

His hand clamps around Jeremy’s throat.

“-I miss you too.”


End file.
